Will there be a feminist revolution?

We still need feminism to bust myths and taboos

Naomi Wolf at the Women of the World festival in London. The festival demonstrated feminism’s strength and relevance (photo: Belinda Lawley)

When Shami Chakrabarti got up on stage at Women of the World festival last weekend and declared that feminists “don’t want a petition, we want a fucking revolution,” she was met with a storm of cheers and applause.

Boosted by the internet and social media, the feminist movement has become increasingly prominent in recent years. Initiatives like the Everyday Sexism Project and Vagenda magazine have helped draw activists together. More feminist voices are finding space in the mainstream media: Everyday Sexism’s founder Laura Bates is a regular contributor to the Independent, while Vagenda’s co-founders Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter write the V Spot blog for the New Statesman.

The Southbank Centre’s annual WoW festival is more evidence of feminism’s current strength. Now in its third year, it involves five days of events and lectures, organised by the Centre’s brilliant artistic director Jude Kelly, in celebration of International Women’s Day. The festival’s reputation is such that Malala Yousafzai unexpectedly showed up on the Friday. Still fragile, she remained backstage, her presence unannounced at the time.

The focus was on feminisms: embracing different voices as part of the same movement, rather than emphasising divisions. One of those voices came in the talk on “Global feminism and the Middle East”, a subject that has become more prominent since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the Arab Spring. As the Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif put it, “when the revolution happened, the western media wanted to know about two things: the Islamists, and women.” It’s a thorny topic because of the risk of patronising Arab women or imposing western concepts of feminism on them. But Nadje Al-Ali, a professor of gender studies at SOAS, kicked off proceedings by saying that “Iraq has a very long history of feminism going back to the early 20th century.” She reminded us that many Iraqi feminists “didn’t want to associate themselves with the occupation,” and in some senses, like gender-based violence, women there are actually worse off than they were ten years ago.

What the Middle East needs is a sexual revolution, said Shereen El Feki, author of the recently published Sex and the Citadel. El Feki believes that sexual liberation is an integral…

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Comments

Alan Robinson

March 14, 2013 at 05:47

Will there be a femist revolution?
Well maybe there will elsewhere, but it seems to me that in northwest Europe feminism has gone quite far enough thank you. For example, I consider Draconian these new EU quotas for female company directors, and the vast increase in numbers of single-parent families is most regrettable; and in this connexion I find it puerile that adults exclaim "what? should I remain in an unhappy relationship just because I have children?" Of course there are cases where a relationship ought not continue, but many children's lives are disrupted because they have petty, egoistic, immature parents. Feminism - in my view - shoulders a fair share of blame for this regrettable situation where adults themselves behave like spoilt children.
There are other issues. For one thing, there are inherent differences between most women and men. Just the other week - quite by accident - I heard BBC Radio 4s "Women's Hour", a program I deliberately avoid because it irritates me. However, on this occasion there was an interview with a "successful woman"; she was an expert in information technology, and she was speaking of her attempts to boost the numbers of women working in her own particular field. She described how many of the young women she spoke with were eager to know how lady computer engineers must dress for such work. Now, I thought this was a comical comment to make, but oddly enough, the (female) program hosts seemed to think it a very natural question to put, as though the clothes we wear are as important as the work itself.
Another matter I think needs addressing is one of male aggression and feminism. Many women with feminist views seem to me to think that men are aggressive towards women simply because women are female. However, this viewpoint quite overlooks the fact that aggressive men are pretty much indiscriminate in their aggression, and other men are targetted equally. Many men see life as one big competition, and the object is to win. It doesn't matter who gets in the way, they have to be brushed aside, and the rough treatment of each other is all part of the fun. Again, the inherent differences between women and men come to the fore, with men accepting that many other men can be aggressive, while many women entertain the idea that they are being bullied merely because they are women; and in this connexion I would say that sexual harassment of women by men corresponds to outright abusiveness between men; it is laughable to suggest that an aggressive heterosexual man would make sexual advances to another man. Who will deny that in normal heterosexual relationships there is at least a tiny element of male dominance and female submission? Isn't it true that many women find men in uniform somewhat attractive?
Now of course, elsewhere in the world, there is undoubtedly a case for female emancipation, and I for one support it. But a feminst revolution in northwest Europe? No thank you, that would be a step too far.

MarinaS

March 14, 2013 at 11:36

There already is a feminist revolution, it just doesn't look like we thought it'll look. Zoom out and look at the world on the scale of numbers and trends, and women are doing the one incontestably effective thing any movement of liberation can do: they are withdrawing their labour.
Literally. Birth rates, despite the hoo-hah about overpopulation, are absolutely plummeting everywhere in the world. Brasil, India, Ethiopia - upside down hockey sticks. Control of fertility and the choice women have clearly taken, simultaneously and spontaneously, to control is *down*, is having at least the same impact on human development as the development of agriculture (also likely precipitated by women) did.
What the results will be it's hard to say; feminists need to make sure we ride the current and are not run over by it. But something huge is already happening.

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